Give me two for the road
I found myself on the Bitterness Thread in the TWoP Lost forums again. It's nice to see I'm not the only one fed up with the show, but depressing because every post reminds me of something else that the show is getting tragically wrong.
Other than the ill-advised continuation of flashbacks, here's my take on what went wrong in season two. It's becoming clear now--and only now--that the season is rocketing toward a confrontation with the Others. The problem with that is that we weren't able to tell a month, two weeks, a week ago.
Ideally, a season of a TV drama will have one arching plot that ties things together and moves forward to a conclusion. Last season, it was the quest to get into the hatch; there were a lot of scenes with it, and the time Locke and Boone spent on it triggered other events (mistrusting Locke, no boar meat, the entire Boone/Shannon ep, and Locke running back to the hatch so he's not there when Boone dies). Opening the hatch was a pretty good goal.
But this season, everything having to do with the Others has seemed like filler. We saw the Otherboat, but were really interesting in losing Walt. We thought we met the Others, but they were the tailies. The tailies met the Others, but by then it seemed like just another obstacle in getting across the island. Ana-Lucia shot Shannon because she thought she was an Other...but it was the shooting we cared about. Henry was tons of fun because he might not have been an Other. Only Claire's flashbacks gave the Others center stage (and even then, Alex upstaged them all).
Maybe the season was so boring because the only plot the writers were trying to advance was the one we viewers dismissed.
So now Michael's back, and we know that the Others were meant to be the season's plot arc. It's a very frustrating element of the island. We know too much to guess wildly (like we did with the beast, which could have been a dinosaur or mech or demon or Giant Helen or anything) and we know too little to guess accurately. Speculating about the Others is neither fruitful nor fun.
And how do they actually affect island life? They haven't attacked for weeks and weeks. They've said that they want to live in segregated peace. They're not stealing food or water, they're not inhibiting escape plans (all right...anymore. But I contend that they blew up the raft to get Walt, not to keep 815 stranded), they're not actively taking people anymore, and Rousseau was totally lying that they were coming for Aaron.
In short, the Others do not have to be dealt with.
What does 815 have to deal with? Well, they're still stranded. The guns have been changing hands regularly--they should keep tabs on those. Eko's thinking about long-term structures now, that sounds wise. There was the question of Henry. There was a leadership crisis. There's an illness out there. Desmond "The Only Person On the Island Who Might Know What Is Going On" is still missing. There's a smokebeast out there. And the burnt shell of a crack plane, and a Black Rock full of dynamite. And polar bears!! They could spend an entire day sharing stories about mysterious goings-on that no one has told anyone else about yet. And oh yeah, there's an entire island to explore.
It's no wonder that our curiosity about the Others has been eclipsed. But now the writers expect us to care about their hidden arc--and worse, be excited about it!
If the Others are made of smoke and read minds, maybe. If they have superhuman strength and ride polar bears, definitely. But if they turn out to be scientists trapped for long periods by or for the Dharma Initiative, in a well-lit hatch with medicine and regular food drops? Dude, that sounds like my job. This is not the stuff of which great TV is made.
Other than the ill-advised continuation of flashbacks, here's my take on what went wrong in season two. It's becoming clear now--and only now--that the season is rocketing toward a confrontation with the Others. The problem with that is that we weren't able to tell a month, two weeks, a week ago.
Ideally, a season of a TV drama will have one arching plot that ties things together and moves forward to a conclusion. Last season, it was the quest to get into the hatch; there were a lot of scenes with it, and the time Locke and Boone spent on it triggered other events (mistrusting Locke, no boar meat, the entire Boone/Shannon ep, and Locke running back to the hatch so he's not there when Boone dies). Opening the hatch was a pretty good goal.
But this season, everything having to do with the Others has seemed like filler. We saw the Otherboat, but were really interesting in losing Walt. We thought we met the Others, but they were the tailies. The tailies met the Others, but by then it seemed like just another obstacle in getting across the island. Ana-Lucia shot Shannon because she thought she was an Other...but it was the shooting we cared about. Henry was tons of fun because he might not have been an Other. Only Claire's flashbacks gave the Others center stage (and even then, Alex upstaged them all).
Maybe the season was so boring because the only plot the writers were trying to advance was the one we viewers dismissed.
So now Michael's back, and we know that the Others were meant to be the season's plot arc. It's a very frustrating element of the island. We know too much to guess wildly (like we did with the beast, which could have been a dinosaur or mech or demon or Giant Helen or anything) and we know too little to guess accurately. Speculating about the Others is neither fruitful nor fun.
And how do they actually affect island life? They haven't attacked for weeks and weeks. They've said that they want to live in segregated peace. They're not stealing food or water, they're not inhibiting escape plans (all right...anymore. But I contend that they blew up the raft to get Walt, not to keep 815 stranded), they're not actively taking people anymore, and Rousseau was totally lying that they were coming for Aaron.
In short, the Others do not have to be dealt with.
What does 815 have to deal with? Well, they're still stranded. The guns have been changing hands regularly--they should keep tabs on those. Eko's thinking about long-term structures now, that sounds wise. There was the question of Henry. There was a leadership crisis. There's an illness out there. Desmond "The Only Person On the Island Who Might Know What Is Going On" is still missing. There's a smokebeast out there. And the burnt shell of a crack plane, and a Black Rock full of dynamite. And polar bears!! They could spend an entire day sharing stories about mysterious goings-on that no one has told anyone else about yet. And oh yeah, there's an entire island to explore.
It's no wonder that our curiosity about the Others has been eclipsed. But now the writers expect us to care about their hidden arc--and worse, be excited about it!
If the Others are made of smoke and read minds, maybe. If they have superhuman strength and ride polar bears, definitely. But if they turn out to be scientists trapped for long periods by or for the Dharma Initiative, in a well-lit hatch with medicine and regular food drops? Dude, that sounds like my job. This is not the stuff of which great TV is made.